I read an interesting article on Facebook the other day. It was about the movie Rogue One and the effect the accent of Mexican actor Diego Luna had on a woman and her father, who is also from Mexico and has a similarly heavy accent. If you want to read the article, do so here.

I don’t have an accent, but as a brown person who, as a child, rarely saw people that looked like myself on TV or anywhere else that matters, I teared up reading this article. It might seem like a little thing but representation does matter. When children don’t see people that look like them held up in the media as someone pretty or valuable or even just normal, they grow up feeling like outsiders. They feel different from everybody else, like they don’t exist.

For me, the saddest part about this is that I grew up as a mixed race brown person in Australia where everyone (well, not everyone but the vast majority) was white. When we moved to Jamaica when I was 10, I thought, ‘Finally, I’ll be like everyone else!’ But the opposite happened. People in Jamaica considered me white. I wasn’t one of them. I was a white person as well as a foreigner. An outsider squared. The only upside was that I found other mixed race children to hang out with and also brown skin was considered more desirable than darker skin so I traded up in that respect. Still, I was too skinny to fit the ideal Jamaican body type so I suppose I broke even in the end.

I don’t know how much different my life would have been if I was born looking like everyone else. When you’ve never looked like everyone else, you can’t possible imagine what it would be like to fit in. In the same way I’d imagine that if you’ve always been one of the majority, you can’t really see the privilege your skin colour, your slim body or your accentless voice gives you. Not that this is anyone’s fault. It’s just the way the world is and it will be a long time before anything changes in a major way. But it made me smile that something like this got so much traction, that people were moved by how happy one person was made because he saw a hero on screen that looked and sounded like him. Imagine how a young boy or girl would feel if they saw someone that looked like them featured in a magazine or in a movie and as a major character rather than just the sidekick to the hero? And it’s not even just a race thing – it’s a gender thing, a plus size (not sure if I like that term but oh well) thing, a sexuality thing. There are so many ‘things’ that can automatically dump you in outsider territory besides just race.

Yet with all I just said, I like enjoy different nowadays. I like being ‘exotic’. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But then again, I can’t, can I? I’ve just learned to love the things that make me look different from everyone else. I’m sure some people with the same experience still wish they could fit in and look like the people around them. And I think that’s sad and I hope one day they can embrace the things that make them different. Because the world is a better place for diversity even if Hollywood and fashion magazines and TV shows are only just starting realise it.

Mixed race. Inter-racial. Bi-racial. Half caste. I know we don’t use that last term anymore but we once did. That’s what I am. I’m Australian-Puerto-Rican. My mum is Australian-English and my dad was Puerto Rican-African (I’m told, I don’t think he knew his dad). I am well and truly a one-person melting pot of at least three races and many cultures (I also grew up in Jamaica).

Today, I read an article on FB about people’s reactions to an Old Navy ad featuring an inter-racial family and I was actually hurt (read this for the backstory). I mean, considering it’s just another ‘thing’ on the internet and the internet can often be filled with hateful people saying hateful things but somehow it affected me. This means there are people out there who think I shouldn’t exist, that I’m an abomination. That there’s something wrong with my mother that she would want to be with a brown skinned man. My sister is half-Venezuelan. Mum fucked up twice, it would seem.

Of course, I’m not totally naive. I knew there were people out there like this. I’m ‘lucky’ enough not to have faced all that much racism in my life but you can’t help but wonder how people got this way? Surely we left all that shit back in the 70s? No? Ok then, wishful thinking on my part, I guess, and it will probably never end.

The thing that gets me is how brazen and unapologetic their hatred can be. How can you say something like, “Absolutely disgusting. What’s next? Gender neutral bathrooms? Pedophilia acceptance propaganda?! Never shopping here again” when referring to a photo of family where the parents just happen to be of different races? Plus the family is probably not even real, I mean it is advertising after all, which means the mere suggestion or acknowledgement of a multi-racial family is an outrage to some. Why the actual fuck does that matter to anyone, let alone enrage them so much they post something hateful on social media? And to lump it in with pedophilia – are you fucking crazy? You must be, that’s the only explanation. Actually no, that’s an insult to the mentally ill. You’re just terrible people.

Then you have this: #WhiteGenocide? Really? That’s a bit rich. Everywhere you look, there are white people in advertising and positions of power and privilege. You think Old Navy posting one ad with a mixed race family is going to burn the establishment to the ground. Calm down, sweet cheeks. I think not.

I don’t know about you but this picture definitely screams ‘abomination’ to me

On the upside, human beings have proved we’re not all racist cunts by posting mixed race family photos in support of Old Navy. Because, you know, there are heaps of us and there’s actually nothing to be ashamed of. Sheeesh.